Ignoring race will not equalize a society that is racially unequal. What was true in the 1860s, and again in 1954, is true today: Equality requires acknowledgment of inequality.
- Justice Sonia Sotomayor
SFFA v Harvard, dissenting
This week's featured post is "The Court Unleashed".
This week everybody was talking about the Supreme Court
As usual, and as I predicted last week, the Court saved its most controversial decisions for last. In the featured post, I examined how the Court is throwing off any restraint on its power. For a case-by-case analysis, I'll refer you to a series of articles by Vox' Ian Millhiser.
Another angle not covered in the featured post is what happens next. On student loan relief, President Biden has not given up. His Department of Education is working on a new approach based on a different law.
On LGBTQ rights, the ball is in the bigots' court. As I explained in the featured post, the 303 Creative case was vaporous, so there are no immediate consequences: Maybe Lorie Smith will start her wedding website business and maybe it will discriminate, but who really cares? Her case was a stalking horse for future discrimination, and we'll have to wait and see what that discrimination entails.
The affirmative action case is immediately consequential if you hope to attend a university in the coming years. The first thing to look for is what each institution's new admission policy is, and whether they try to achieve the goal of a diverse student body in some other way -- say by focusing on class rather than race, or recruiting a more diverse applicant poll, or something else.
Whatever they do, it seems likely that Black and Hispanic enrollment in elite universities and professional schools will drop, at least in the near term.
A few people on my social media feed have suggested an intriguing idea: What if some religion-affiliated university claims that its religious mission requires a diverse student body? How would the Court handle a religious-freedom defense of an affirmative-action admission policy?
My candidate university: Georgetown.
“Georgetown, the oldest Catholic and Jesuit university in the nation, was founded on the principle that engagement between people of different faiths, cultures and beliefs promotes intellectual development, an understanding of service and solidarity, and a commitment to the common good,” says Georgetown President John J. DeGioia. “Our Jesuit tradition of education recognizes the value of diversity as necessary to education and in our work to shape future leaders who will make invaluable contributions to our national and global communities.”
Another possibility is Notre Dame, where Amy Coney Barrett got her law degree and used to teach.
At Notre Dame, our Catholic mission compels us to build a class reflecting the diversity of experiences and gifts of the human family. We undertake a comprehensive assessment of applicants, admit talented students with interests and aspirations consonant with our mission, and provide opportunities for a wide range of young people. These commitments are as meaningful today at Notre Dame as they were yesterday. We will study the Supreme Court’s decision and consider any implications for our admissions process as we strive to fulfill our distinctive mission.
In the background of the affirmative action debate is a national sense of disappointment. In the 1960s, it was easy to imagine that our racial caste system needed a legal framework. Once Jim Crow and various other legally enforced discrimination ended, many of us expected things to equalize. In a generation or two, race truly would not matter.
By now it's obvious that didn't happen. So we're seeing a number of possible responses:
- Pretend it did happen. This seems to be Chief Justice Roberts' approach: It's been such a long time, racism must be over by now.
- Blame Black people: We really did level the playing field, so anybody who can't climb the meritocracy must just lack merit.
- Blame White people: Prejudice is so strongly ingrained in Whites that we can't let Blacks succeed.
- Look for structural inertia. Once a caste system takes root, it manifests in more places than just the law. It was naive to think that ending blatant legal discrimination would fix everything.
Personally, I'm a structuralist. White prejudice still persists and still matters; I can see it in myself, for example. But I don't think the personal prejudices of individual Whites are the main force keeping Black people down.
Some of the best short-form political satire comes from the NYT Pitchbot, which suggests articles for the New York Times to pursue:
Opinion | Without the burden of affirmative action, Harvard can finally become a true meritocracy by Jared Kushner and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
and Bidenomics
It goes without saying that the Biden administration doesn't hype itself as often or as well as the Trump administration did. Trump is a natural braggart and showman, while Biden has consistently focused more on governing than on taking credit.
In part, not taking credit is part of Biden's governing strategy: He has gotten a surprising amount of Republican cooperation on stuff like infrastructure and technology precisely because he leaves the focus on infrastructure and technology rather than making it all about himself. Trump, on the other hand, consistently failed to get programs through Congress, even when his party controlled both houses.
The result is that Biden consistently runs behind Trump in polls about managing the economy, in spite of the fact that Biden's record is pretty darn good: Trump handed him a terrible economy in 2021, and yet the predicted recession never comes and jobs continue to be created at record rates. Trump's economic record can be summed up in two lines: Obama left him a growing economy with room to run, and Mitch McConnell let him run big deficits that he would have rejected under a Democratic president. Nothing else about the Trump administration made much economic difference.
But it's nearly impossible to get reelected without claiming credit for things, so Biden has begun to lay claim to a term Republicans have been using as an insult: Bidenomics.
Bidenomics isn't just a slogan and a set of graphs. It actually means something that should be popular if people hear its message. Ever since Reagan, the economy has been run under a trickle-down theory: Make sure rich people have lots of money and hope they invest it in things that create jobs. That was the logic of Trump's tax cut, which went almost entirely to corporations and the rich.
Biden's vision is to build the economy "from the middle out and the bottom up". The three legs Bidenomics stands on are: public investment in infrastructure and future oriented industries like sustainable energy; empowering the workforce through training and unionization; and promoting competition through antitrust enforcement.
and you also might be interested in ...
A January 6 defendant was arrested near Barrack Obama's home with two guns and 400 rounds of ammunition.
Pro-science podcaster Skepchick (Rebecca Watson) lines up on the don't-debate-kooks side of the Peter Hotez/Joe Rogan/RFK Jr. controversy that I discussed last week. In case you imagine RFK Jr. can't really be that bad, Rebecca summarizes what he said on Rogan's show ("to which Joe Rogan responded with a pathetic, open-mouthed gape").
vaccines cause autism, vaccines contain mercury, ivermectin cures COVID, “Big Pharma” “had to destroy” ivermectin to get emergency use authorization for vaccines, all the studies showing no benefit to ivermectin are fake, taking the COVID vaccine makes you “21 percent more likely to die of all causes,” he’s being silenced by “Big Pharma,” and oh yeah, wifi “radiation” ALSO causes autism plus food allergies, asthma, and eczema while “degrad(ing) your mitochondria and (opening) your blood-brain barrier.”
I can understand Democrats worrying about Biden's age, or wishing the liberal worldview had a more charismatic advocate. But seriously, is that what you want in a president?
and let's close with something pop cultural
As the Oppenheimer movie opens, let's flash back to Oppy's previous pop-culture appearance: his rap battle with Thanos.
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